What’s the difference between Easter egg chocolate and regular chocolate?

Consumers also expect round-shaped chocolate to be creamier than angular-shape chocolate.

Taste is the recognition of simple ingredients dissolving in saliva and entering the taste pores on our tongue. In the case of chocolate, we perceive the taste as sweet (sugar), fatty (cocoa butter) and potentially bitter (caffeine and other cocoa-based compounds).

So even before we’ve taken a bite, we perceive a chocolate egg will be creamier than a block. These expectations can shape how we experience the flavour of chocolate.

What do they contain?

So whether you are a sucker or a chewer, Easter is a great time to slow down and celebrate with loved ones. Enjoy and savour your Easter chocolate in moderation, egg-shaped or otherwise.

7g protein

• With Easter around the corner, you’ll have seen chocolate Easter eggs on supermarket shelves. Maybe you’ve bought some already.
• Last of all, eating Easter eggs (and hunting for them) are often part of a shared family ritual. This can make Easter chocolate seem special. No wonder we enjoy the whole Easter egg experience.
• about 2,200 kilojoules of energy
• Cadbury Dairy Milk hollow easter egg and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate block both contain per 100 gram:

Chewers tend to swallow chocolate more quickly and may perceive it to have a weaker flavour because of the shorter time for aromas to be released.

Biting into hollow chocolate, such as eggs and animals, may also require more time to chew and swallow. This results in Easter chocolate spending longer in our mouths with a greater release of aromas. This means we perceive a greater intensity or diversity of flavours compared to eating small squares.

It’s more about the taste, texture and smell

But is there a difference between Easter chocolate and the everyday kind? Does Easter chocolate really taste better, as some people say?

55g sugar

How someone eats chocolate can also change its flavour. One study categorised people who ate chocolate as “suckers” or “chewers”.

Smoothness, creaminess and mouthcoating (for example, an oily feeling) are important components of chocolate’s mouthfeel.

As we’ll see, any difference is less about the ingredients and more about how we experience the chocolate when we eat it.

The mouth is incredibly sensitive to the texture of foods. We perceive multiple physical qualities of a food, which we call “mouthfeel”.

Both products have a minimum 24% milk solids. The egg has a marginally higher percentage of cocoa solids (28%) than the block (27%).

We’ve already heard the shape of chocolate influences how creamy we think it is. But the shape of chocolate also influences other aspects of our eating experience.

It is safe to eat chocolate with bloom, but it may taste less creamy or more gritty than chocolate without bloom.

So how a person eats Easter chocolate may also impact whether they prefer it over regular chocolate.

The difference between Easter chocolate and regular chocolate is more about how we experience the flavour of chocolate – via taste, texture and smell.

31g fat

The shape of chocolate

When we compared the ingredients and nutrients of Easter egg chocolate and regular chocolate from the same company, we found no major differences.

The temperature at which chocolate is made and stored also impacts its texture. Sometimes chocolate gets a whitish haze on its surface called chocolate bloom. This is when the fat and sugar separate from each other, forming fat or sugar crystals.

Easter chocolate in the shape of an egg or an animal provides a large contact area inside the mouth meaning it will melt faster than a block. This impacts how quickly aroma compounds are released from the chocolate.

Are you a sucker or a chewer?

Finally, smell contributes the most to how we perceive flavour in foods. When chocolate starts to melt in our mouth, aromas are released. These aromas make their way through the back of the nose where we smell the complex scents and notes of chocolate. Depending on the chocolate, this could include fruity, earthy, buttery or floral aromas.

However, if the chocolate egg is not as creamy as expected, this can be disappointing.

However, texture and smell make us most likely to tell the difference between Easter and regular chocolate.

Easter is only once a year

So if they contain pretty much the same ingredients, what else is going on?

Because the demand is so high during Easter, chocolate manufacturers sometimes use rapid-cooling techniques to produce hollow Easter eggs at a faster rate. This may make them more susceptible to chocolate bloom. Cheaper Easter chocolates using these rapid procedures may have a different texture than chocolate made the traditional way.